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By Latif Nazemi

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Afghanistan was confronted with economic and social change which also sparked a new approach to literature. In the first decade of the twentieth century, social and political life in Afghanistan went through a period of reorientation. In 1903 the first modern school was opened, modeled after the new schools in Europe. This school was named Habibieh after the Emir who ruled the country at the time. Beside Afghanistanis there were also Indian teachers working in this school. It soon became a centre for new ideas, and it was there that Afghanistan’s constitutional movement was born.

In 1911, Mahmud Tarzi, who came back to Afghanistan after years of exile in Turkey and was influential in government circles, started a fortnightly publication named Saraj’ul Akhbar. Saraj was not the first such publication in the country, but in the field of journalism and literature it instigated a new period of change and modernization. A periodical named Shams’ul Nahar had started publication in the year 1873, but it was unable to influence journalism in any way and left no traces whatsoever in literary circles. Saraj not only played an important role in journalism; it also gave new impulses to literature as a whole and opened the way for poetry and lyrics to search for new avenues of expression so that personal thoughts took on a more social color.

Written by Abdulwali Arian

Three countries agree to first joint TV station based in Dushanbe

THE MINISTER of foreign affairs, Dr Rangin Spanta, has said Afghanistan will continue its economic, cultural, political and regional co-operation with Tajikistan and Iran.

Spanta said at a conference in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe on Saturday that the three countries had agreed to continue co-operating with each other on issues of mutual interest, including drug smuggling and "terrorism".

The foreign ministers from the three countries also agreed in principle to a television channel that would for the first time feature programmes and news from all three countries.

The station would be based in Dushanbe, Spanta said.

The foreign ministers also discussed building roads and railways between the three countries.